Carbon price not effective
It is unbecoming for the Greens and major environmental organisations to be supporting the Gillard government’s carbon price, which promises to be so palpably ineffective in reducing Australian emissions.
Even treasury modelling indicates that it will be over a decade before Australian emissions begin to fall, whereas climate science indicates that we need big reductions beginning now.
Anybody impressed with promises to spend $2 billion a year on renewable energy should remember that this compares with more than $10 billion a year in federal and state subsidies to polluting fossil fuel companies.
That shows where the government’s priorities really lie.
Even the claim that at least this scheme “gets the ball rolling” is false.
The worst thing about this scheme is that it will promote investment in the polluting gas industry — the sector that threatens the biggest expansion of Australian emissions in the coming decade. This would lock in a fossil fuel economy for decades to come.
Australia should be moving towards 100% renewable energy by 2020 as Beyond Zero Emissions has demonstrated is possible. This package will not help us get there.
Alex Bainbridge
Perth, WA
Labor lies on climate targets
Australia’s greenhouse gas pollution, including land use, in million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) was 465 in the year 2000 and 600 in 2009.
A target of 5% off the 2000 level by 2020 would mean a 2020 GHG pollution of 0.95 x 465 = 441.8 million tonnes CO2-e.
The atomic weight of carbon is 12 and the molecular weight of carbon dioxide is 44 so 441.8 million tonnes of CO2-e = 441.8 x 12/44 = 441.8 / 3.67 = 120.4 million tonnes of carbon.
If we assume a business as usual average annual growth in Australia’s greenhouse gas pollution of 2% then this would mean a 2020 level of 1.24 x 600 / 3.67 = 202.7 million tonnes of carbon and savings of 202.7 – 120.4 = 82.3 million tonnes of carbon in 2020.
Yet in her July 10 speech on the carbon tax PM Julia Gillard declared: “By 2020 this will cut carbon pollution by 160 million tonnes a year” and “by 2020 our carbon price will take 160 million tonnes of pollution out of the atmosphere every year”.
Gillard also ignored Australia’s fossil fuel exports (222 million tonnes of carbon in 2009 and 313 in 2020) and falsely asserted that gas and cleaner coal (both dirty fossil fuels) mean a “great clean energy future” for Australia. Dangerous untruths.
Gideon Polya,
Macleod, Vic
ALP, Greens wrong on carbon price
The carbon tax will not make the world better a better place in 2050. The economical equations, and the modelling, do not support this objective. Two percent of GDP, minimum, preferably 10%, is required to be invested in the transition to genuinely clean and renewable energies. This is not happening.
What has been proposed by the ALP and the Greens actually locks humanity into a piecemeal process that similarly with Aboriginal disparity, does not close the gap and rather whatever piecemeal gains, the gap continues to widen.
The $18,000 free tax threshold is long overdue for Australians, and the fact that one million of our poorest folk will not be encumbered by lodging tax assessments is genuine reform, however this is tax reform.
What the ALP and the Greens have done is couple tax reform, some of it good, with a carbon price for polluters when they do not go hand in hand.
The argument that merely penalising carbon polluters is working in other parts of the world, as Christine Milne would like us to believe in for instance the UK, is not true.
It does not work, and these claims about how things are better in Europe, one the world's greatest polluters and most unsustainable economies has to stop.
End of the century the world will be at least 2 degrees warmer, and emissions more than they have ever been.
Gerry Georgatos
Bridgetown, WA. [Abridged]
Proud of Gillard on climate
After spending hours glued to the TV coverage [of the carbon price announcement] I emerged proud to be an Australian who has a female Prime Minister who has the intelligence to understand the science of global warming; who has the vision to take Australia towards a low carbon future; who has the negotiating skills to broker a solution between the Greens and the two independents; who has the compassion to look after the most vulnerable members of our rich country and who has the eloquence to explain a difficult and complex concept to a sceptical audience.
Colin Hughes
Midland, WA
Ban lifted, but cattle still abused
The federal government has succeeded in making a mockery of the Australian public yet again.
With a plethora of explicit documentation of the barbaric and cruel death exported cattle are exposed to, the government has succumbed to Meat and Livestock Australia’s protests, allowing 180,000 Australian cattle to be exported to Indonesian abattoirs immediately.
Rationality would have me believe that improvements regarding the treatment of cattle would have had to occur in order for the ban to be lifted. Unfortunately, one should never assume rationality, especially concerning the federal government and corporate profit.
There have been no significant changes regarding the treatment of Australian cattle in Indonesia; no mandatory stunning, no monitoring system, no training, nothing.
Australian veterinarians and inspectors were denied access to the 600 abattoirs that “process” Australian cattle, so the true abattoir conditions remain unknown.
Joe Ludwig has even gone on record stating that he is unable to guarantee that cattle will not be tortured in the manner that was documented on Four Corners.
He also pathetically stated that stunning would still not be required, only encouraged.
The haste with which the government crumbles to the MLA’s and the so-called “cattle farmers” is slightly disturbing.
During the ban, members of the cattle industry attempted to appeal to Australian’s compassion by stating that they were going to have to begin killing their cattle and that the loss of income would be detrimental to their livelihood.
First, to be shot at point blank is a far better death than the agonising sadistic method occurring in Indonesia abattoirs.
Regarding loss of income, the MLA has a contingency account, which is collected for redistribution to farmers during periods of economical uncertainty. No funds were distributed during this period, further evidence the mindset of the MLA board; profits above all.
There is no disputing that the Australian economy is reliant on the cattle industry but to what end?
In this day and age, we have the technology to ensure slaughter is quick and painless and yet by lifting the ban, our government approves of methods which inflict excruciating pain onto animals. This is an embarrassment to the Australian public.
As an Australian consumer, I no longer wish to support an industry with such indifference to torture.
Nicky Lee Seigo
Petersham, NSW